Game of chance built as a Red Bull Creation entry

[Tom Bourke] wrote in to show off the game of chance which was built for this year’s Red Bull Creation contest. The project was completed with the help of the Wausau Collaboration Center, a Hackerspace in Wausau, Wisconsin.

He does a great job of showing off the game in the clip after the break. Near the bottom of the device is a hard drive platter which each player can spin to test his or her luck. [Tom] used a max485 chip to turn the leads for the hard drive motor into a quadrature encoder. This input is monitored by the Bullduino board, which puts on a light and sound show during the spin. The LEDs that surround the display are individually addressable (probably the same LED strings as this wall display) and cycle trough different colors based on the rotational speed of the patters. The large seven segment display provides a readout for the random number that is generated. Roll a ten and you win! We guess you need to make the rest of the game up yourself, but this could easily be used as a 16-sided die (or less).

10 thoughts on “Game of chance built as a Red Bull Creation entry”

I did not know how to pronounce it when I first started using them. I did not see a W so did not know it was “ardweeno.” Any way, building this was lots of fun. I was going to do 4 slots over the digit on its side, for “milk, soda, juice, water” and then a fifth in the middle with the bullduino. With the limited time it turned into this. I figure it could mimic up to a D20 if your willing to add 1 (0 to 19) or what ever you want if you do a computer interface to the USB port.

Ah, so.. you only started using them for this project? Or you know how to pronounce it by now, but you just choose to stick to your own version? :) Anyway, looks like you had fun building it: I like how it sounds! There’s actually no W required for Arduino to sound like it does: it’s Italian.

I have done several. I have over a dozen LED displays using 5 each of those 7″tall digits all over the state in a chain of auction houses. That project is where the custom max485 PCB comes from. I also own a lighting company and custom build small custom DMX controllers for specific needs. New for this project was getting an encoder working.

As for how I say it, well, I just got use to the wrong way. I figure its like potato or tomato. If I get in I will say it however Redbull wants me to;) As a side note, most people screw up my name pretty bad, even after being corrected. For the record the Bou is pronounced the same as the bou in bourbon.